February 17-23 recognized as National Court Reporting and Captioning Week

The National Court Reporters Association, the country’s leading organization representing stenographic court reporters and broadcast captioners, has announced that February 17-23 has been deemed National Court Reporting and Captioning Week. The awareness week pulls together a nationwide effort to highlight the contributions of stenographic court reporters and captioners to society and to showcase the career opportunities that exist in the court reporting and captioning fields.

AWR & Associates, a Daniel Island based firm covering all ranges of litigation, is planning to get involved with National Court Reporting and Captioning Week by joining the grassroots efforts to promote the profession and educate local communities about the value stenographic skills bring to today’s marketplace.

Bill Roberts, founder and Chief Executive Officer of AWR has been a stenographic court reporter for over 30 years and is a graduate of The Stenotype Institute of Jacksonville. He has been a member of NCRA for 30 years and has earned nationally recognized credentials including the Certificate of Merit, Certified Realtime Reporter, Registered Professional Reporter, and the Certified Manager of Reporting Services. He lives in Mount Pleasant, SC with his wife, Karen Roberts, also a court reporter and manager with AWR, and his two sons, Michael and Andrew Roberts. Michael is currently enrolled at the University of South Carolina School of Business and College of Court Reporting. His son, David C. Roberts, is the Chief Operating Officer of AWR and also has been practicing as a court reporter for over 10 years.

“As highly technical career options, stenographic court reporting and captioning require an intricate blend of skill and knowledge,” said Tami Smith, president of NCRA and a court reporter for the 37th Circuit Court in Battle Creek, Mich. “National Court Reporting and Captioning Week not only celebrates and highlights the invaluable contributions that court reporters make to the legal and deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, it also showcases the tremendous career opportunities that are available through stenographic court reporting and captioning.”

National Court Reporting and Captioning Week will be marked with promotional events and marketing nationwide, including a grassroots social media campaign, presentations at high schools across the country about court reporting and captioning career opportunities and community demonstrations such as producing transcripts of veterans’ oral histories. “For 10 years, members of the National Court Reporters Association have volunteered their time and professional skills to capture the oral histories of America’s disabled veterans,”said B.J. Shorak, deputy executive director of the National Court Reporters Foundation. “These transcripts—thousands of important histories that would have otherwise been lost—are preserved at the Library of Congress thanks to the skill and dedication of court reporters and captioners.”

Stenographic skills translate to a multitude of career options—including court reporting, live-event captioning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, captioning for broadcast and specialized videography—and the strong marketplace demand means court reporting offers an abundance of long-term career opportunities. “Court reporting is consistently ranked as one of the top career options as it offers both flexibility and significant income potential,” notes Jim Cudahy, CEO and executive director of NCRA. “Court reporters and captioners are able to begin a career without a traditional four-year college degree, and these highly trained professionals experience the continuous professional growth associated with an in-demand career.”

For more information, visit NCRA.org. Career information about the court reporting profession—one of the leading career options that do not require a four-year degree—can be found at CareersInCourtReporting.com.

About NCRA

The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) is internationally recognized for promoting excellence among those who capture and convert the spoken word to text for more than 100 years. NCRA is committed to supporting its more than 19,000 members in achieving the highest level of professional expertise with educational opportunities and industry-recognized court reporting, educator and videographer certification programs. NCRA impacts legislative issues and the global marketplace through its actively involved membership. Forbes has named court reporting as one of the best career options that do not require a four-year degree and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the court reporting field is expected to grow more than 5 percent in the coming years. For more information, visit NCRA.org.

Comments

Notice about comments:

Moultrie News is pleased to offer readers the enhanced ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. We do not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not Moultrie News.

If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click "report abuse" and we will review it for possible removal. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website. Read our full terms and conditions.